


time

by Quecksilver_Eyes



Series: We're not meant to be alone [2]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Gen, The poem, character death is temporary, hi i love nile, obviously, we're not meant to be alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25596526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quecksilver_Eyes/pseuds/Quecksilver_Eyes
Summary: (in the early morning hours, after Joe has prayed, when Nicky is still asleep; he fills his sketchbook with faces long lost and wiped from all that might remember them)
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Nile Freeman, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nile Freeman, Nile Freeman & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova
Series: We're not meant to be alone [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1906879
Comments: 32
Kudos: 112





	time

There will be a time  
one day, perhaps a hundred years from now  
when my mother is buried under Jasmine and Anemone  
when my brother has grown and perished  
under this sun

I won’t remember their faces.

I will forget my mother’s voice  
I will lose the feeling of my brother’s love

a little like  
_what time leaves behind_  
a little like  
a knife in my throat

(in the early morning hours,  
after Joe has prayed,  
when Nicky is still asleep;  
he fills his sketchbook  
with faces long lost  
and wiped  
from all that might remember them)

a little like  
_you come from warriors  
_a little like  
my skin, heavy with lead

(Sunday mornings in May; glass stained  
and breathless with prayers Latin and English,  
Nicky grasps his sword  
like something holy  
like something blasphemous  
and speaks a language no living tongue can know)

a little like  
_we were meant to find each other_  
a little like  
every bone in my body; shattered

(Late at night; with my lungs full of sea water  
with my hands bloodied and bruised  
and screaming; too  
Booker’s voice is a soft thing  
through my phone  
worlds away)

a little like  
_we keep living  
_a little like  
my fists and knees are bloodied and iron-heavy and my lungs are full of salt

(Andy eats baklava like she has just come back to life  
her eyes closed  
her head thrown back  
her voice a low rumble in her throat  
and her laughter feels like the first breath;  
after.)

a little like  
_you’re the oldest  
_a little like  
my chest, carved in

I print out every picture of you  
in a cramped convenience store  
tucked into a corner in Italy somewhere  
I save every recording  
every breath.

Every moment of love.

_\- someday, I will forget you. someday, I will lose your names. someday, someone new will look at me with eyes like a freshwater spring, and I won’t know you, anymore.  
(or, maybe, someday, I will still have these pictures. I will still have your voices. I will still visit your graves. maybe, someday, someone new will know of you and your love.)_


End file.
